An air utilizing apparatus which is placed outdoors under the influence of surrounding weather conditions and which utilizes air as a heating energy source or a cooling energy source, a power source, and/or a reactant is known. As an air utilizing apparatus which utilizes air as a cooling energy source, an air fin cooler, for example, is known. As an air utilizing apparatus which utilizes air as a power source, a wind power generator is known. As an air utilizing apparatus which utilizes air as a reactant, a gas turbine causing combustion reaction or a reactor causing oxidation reforming reaction is known.
In industrial fields, rotators, heat exchangers, pressure vessels, and so on are designed so that they can be operated safely within specific pressure levels and temperatures called the design pressure and the design temperature, respectively. If the actual operating temperature exceeds the design temperature, it is difficult to achieve a desired level of performance. For example, in the case of a gas turbine, the actual output becomes lower than a desired output, and in the case of an air-cooled heat exchanger, the actual amount of heat exchange becomes lower than a desired amount of heat exchange.
Accordingly, in order to design an air utilizing apparatus, usually, the temperature in an environment of a location in which the air utilizing apparatus will be placed is measured at this location, and the design temperature is decided on the basis of the measured temperature.
For example, the amount of gas exhausted from a gas turbine is a function of weather conditions (temperature, atmospheric pressure, and humidity) at a location in which the gas turbine is placed. Accordingly, a method of estimating an amount of gas emitted from a gas turbine by generating an emission amount output report including emission levels on the basis of a plurality of items of weather data is disclosed (see below, Patent Literature 1). In the disclosed estimating method, when a user wishes to obtain predictions of weather conditions, an access is made to, for example, a third-party weather system, and data from weather services is interpolated together with received data, thereby predicting weather conditions around the gas turbine. In the disclosed estimating method, the weather is forecast in this manner if future weather data is not available.
Weather forecasts utilizing weather simulations (see below, Patent Literature 2), or technologies concerning the prediction of the diffusion of radioactive materials (see below, Patent Literature 3) are also disclosed.